ABSTRACT
Having completed the general discussion of the nature of theory and social scientific knowledge I now want to introduce some key concepts of the realist philosophy of science which concern the more immediate problems of method in social research. In this chapter I shall deal primarily with qualitative methods of analysis, leaving quantitative methods to Chapter 6. Now, little can be said about method without taking into account the nature of the things which the methods are to be used to study; for example, decisions regarding causal and structural analysis will depend on judgements about the nature of causation and structures. It will therefore be necessary to switch back and forth between these two aspects in the course of this chapter. I shall mention some of their practical implications as I go through the methods, but inevitably others will not become clear until later, when the whole structure of the realist approach has been set out.
